Geek Ink: Comics Fans Show Off Tattoos

All comic book fans dig ink. Some of them just take their superhero obsessions a little further than others.

Michael Boyce (left) wears his love of comics on his sleeves. A thirtysomething artist who runs On Comic Ground, a comics shop in San Diego, his arms are covered with tattoos of all the superheroines he grew up with: fightin' females like Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl and Wonder Girl.

"Once I started getting one girl, I had to get 'em all," Boyce said.

With flesh forever marked with the comics and sci-fi characters they know and love, geeks like Boyce would give a pack of hard-core bikers a run for their money in the tattoo department.

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Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Wonder Woman struts her stuff on Boyce's right bicep, but his tattoos cover both of his arms.

"I want to have arms that look like comic book pages with the girls bursting out," said Boyce, who got the work done over a three-year period by Willie King Clover in Lemon Grove, California. Boyce also wears a wicked Wonder Woman belt buckle.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

When getting Venom's spider logo added to his left calf, Aaron Hamilton went with stark black ink.

"I wanted something big and bold that just said, 'This is who I am. This is what I like,'" said Hamilton, 30, of Birmingham, Alabama. He says he got the tattoo done 10 years ago by Justin Kontzen of Aerochild Tattoos in Birmingham.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Tim Burton's animated movie The Nightmare Before Christmas got Coley Suicide into tattoos. Now it's Halloween every day of the year on her arm, where "Pumpkin King" Jack Skellington, his girlfriend Sally and ghost dog Zero have taken up permanent residence.

"I've always kinda been obsessed with Tim Burton," said Suicide, 20, of Long Beach, California. "I figured I'd start out with my favorite."

The tattoos took 28 hours, she said, and were done by Nathan Menske in Yakima, Washington.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Chaos Comics characters Lady Death and Purgatori face-off eternally on the back of Chris "Cybian" Kneeland, 39, of San Diego.

"Everything I have (tattoo-wise) is kind of like good and evil," said Kneeland, who works as a website coder and analyst.

The back piece, which was done by Bob Vessells at Funny Farm Tattoos in Los Angeles, was started five years ago, with 20 to 25 hours of needling so far, said Kneeland. He's gained some weight in the interim, and swears he'll get the piece finished when he drops the pounds.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Images of The Thing (pictured), Image Comics' Maxx and other superheroes decorate Sean Brunle's body. The 31-year-old bartender, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, says he chose those characters because he "was physically attracted to them."

The tattoos, done by Rodney Raines at Ace Custom Tattoo in Charlotte, took 15 or 20 hours to finish, Brunle said.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

X-Men badass Wolverine is another of Brunle's favorites.

"They're basically hard on the outside and soft on the inside," Brunle said of the characters indelibly inked on his arms. "Strong men with good hearts, I guess."

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

"Does it ever make sense to us?" asks Jeff Walker, 27, of San Diego. The custodian wears a stark image of a dead bird with a philosophical quote from Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes comic strip on his arm.

"I've just always loved the artwork," Walker said by way of explanation. The tattoo was inked by Chris Walkin at Avalon Tattoo II in San Diego.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Leona the lizard girl from Katherine Dunn's sideshow stunner Geek Love earned a permanent spot on one of Odette Suicide's legs, right next to a living shrine to the Virgin de Guacamole.

Suicide, 27, lives in Ventura, California, and calls herself a "baker with brains." She has a bachelor's degree in psychology (and neurons tattooed on her right arm).

Leona was inked in nine hours by Tim Kern at Tribulation Tattoo in New York City, she said. Nathan Kostechko did the avocado-faced Virgin.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Steve Thompson works as a toy designer for Disney, but Sci Fi Channel's rebooted space opera Battlestar Galactica motivated him to get this skin art. He has Starbuck's tattoo on his arm, courtesy of two hours under the needle at Body Electric Tattoo in Hollywood.

"I'm just a huge fan of the show," said Thompson, 34, of Los Angeles.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Shaz Nolan wears the Dark Mark of the Death Eaters from the Harry Potter books on her left forearm. That fits nicely with the 32-year-old seamstress' cosplay role -- she dresses as Bellatrix Lestrange.

When she saw the image, she couldn't live without it. "And it's fun," said Nolan, who lives in Fullerton, California. She says the tattoo took one hour at Deep Blue Tattoo in Grover Beach, California.